Searobin, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
by Debbie Burke
A college music major receives an email that’s a dream come true. A professor from the same college retired and must find a good home for a gently used baby grand piano. Money isn’t important. In fact, the professor will give the piano away as long as the recipient cherishes it as much as the professor did. To receive the piano, the student only needs to pay a moving company to deliver it.
For a little over $500, delivery is in 10 days, or for expedited two-day service, the fee is $1000. Simply pay the charge in advance by Zelle or cryptocurrency.
A university alum receives a similar email from a professor at that university who’s assisting the widow of a faculty member. She must downsize and wants to donate her husband’s precious baby grand piano to someone who will truly appreciate it. Similar terms: pay a moving company only for delivery charges by Zelle or crypto payment in advance.
Seeing a pattern?
In reality, there is no retired professor or widow, no moving company, and, most of all, no piano. There is only a scammer who preys on unsuspecting victims, pocketing untraceable payments that can’t be recovered.
Scammers understand psychology and know how to appeal to emotions. They offer a music lover’s dream come true for free. But free is almost never free.
Attorney Steve Weisman posts daily fraud warnings on his excellent website Scamicide. His report from June 21, 2024 says:
“Cybersecurity company Proofpoint recently discovered a scam in which people are receiving emails offering a free piano which is available often purportedly due to a death in the family. The scam has largely targeted students and professors at colleges and universities. Often in the email, the scammer poses a someone from the same college or university as that of the targeted victim. According to Proofpoint they have identified about 125,000 of these emails sent since the beginning of the year.”
Steve adds:
“People may trust emails such as this due to affinity fraud where we tend to trust people with whom we share some kind of connection and getting an email such as this that appears to come from someone at your college or university may cause the person receiving the email to trust it to be legitimate.”
The free baby grand piano scam has been around for several years but affinity angle may be a newer, more sophisticated refinement. Reddit has numerous reports about the fraud, including this one from 2021 where the intended victim fortunately caught on before sending money.
The scammer runs ads in online marketplaces like Craig’s List, offering a premium piano for free. The ad is embellished with sentiments that appeal to the buyer’s emotions, like: “want[ing] the piano to be used to share with friends and family the joys of music.”
The person who answers the ad is then referred to a professional-looking website of a moving company that will deliver the piano. Contact may be by email or live chat. The mover even sends a photo of the piano to add legitimacy. However, the photo is probably a generic one from a stock photo site…like the one I used to illustrate this post.
Pro tip: To check photo sources, run a reverse image search through TinEye or Google. This tip also works to verify photos featured on dating sites where the subjects are often models, not real people.
The terms for the delivery payment should set off deafening alarm bells: No credit cards, no PayPal, no secured money transfers. Payment must be made in advance via Zelle, money order, or gift cards.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) payments are popular because they are a fast, convenient way to send money.
The downside: if the merchandise isn’t delivered or is defective, the buyer has no recourse. Once fraudsters receive the money, they disappear. The victim is out of luck because law enforcement can’t help.
Here’s Steve’s recommendation about using P2P services:
“There are many other scams involving Venmo, Zelle and other P2P services and the legal protection that you get with these services in the event you are scammed is nowhere near as great as the protection you get with your credit card. A good rule to follow is to never use Venmo, Zelle or any other P2P service for any business transaction, but limit their use to small transfers between friends and family.”
Brown University posts piano scam warnings on their “Phish Bowl” site. They included the below email which was particularly entertaining. Notice Josiah’s position.
From: Josiah [deleted]
Subject: Baby yamaha piano for free
Date: October 13, 2023 at 5:37:10 PM EDT
To:Dear Student /Staff/Faculty,
One of our staff, Mr. Phil H. is downsizing and looking to give
away his late dad’s piano to a loving home. The Piano is a 2014 Yamaha
Baby Grand size used like new. You can write to him to indicate your
interest on his private email [deleted] to arrange an
inspection and delivery with a moving company. Kindly write Mr. Phil H. via your private email for a swift response.Josiah [deleted]
Professor of Psychoceramics
Per Wiktionary: “Noun. psychoceramics. The study of crackpots.”
Gotta appreciate a scammer with a sense of humor.
Many thanks to Steve Weisman for permission to quote.
~~~
TKZers: Do you know about frauds where valuable items (like a piano) are offered as bait? Have you or someone you know ever been targeted by an affinity scammer?
~~~
Investigator Tawny Lindholm encounters a clever affinity scam in Stalking Midas. But a glamorous con artist has killed before to cover her tracks. Now Tawny is in her crosshairs.
I’m sick and tired of scammers and scumsuckers with nothing to do but prey on people. I had a first last week: I was all set to take my car in to the dealership last Thursday to have the a/c fixed when I got a call the afternoon before that they and several other dealerships were cyber hacked so they were cancelling all service appointments.
A week later, they are still in limbo.
I hope whomever is responsible is found and gets the max punishment.
Brenda, that’s rotten.
One reason I write True Crime Thursday posts is to make people aware of the endless variations of malicious mischief that today’s criminals can cause. Cybercrime affects everyone indiscriminately. As in your example, the hackers may target the dealerships but look at all the innocent customers like you who suffer collateral damage.
Hope you can get your car taken care of soon and drive away cool.
My sister-in-law really did want to give away her baby grand, but no one believed her ad. She ended up donating it to a halfway house.
Mike, what a sorry situation that people can’t trust a genuine offer. But the halfway house was probably happy to received the gift. Considering the healing power of music, the piano may help someone get back on their feet and live a better life.
Thanks for all the examples you show us to warn of fraud. They may also provide ideas for our villains’ journeys. And the “affinity fraud” and use of emotion might give us some legitimate ideas for ways to improve our marketing.
Have a great day!
You’re right, Steve. Lots of memorable villains are inspired by news stories.
Interesting thought about using emotions to help marketing, as long as we can do it ethically.
Yes! Like we use emotions in our stories.
An excellent cautionary post, Debbie. I’ve never personally encountered the affinity scam—the name is very apt—but I can see how the shared background/interest could work on people who otherwise might be resistant. My default setting is skeptical, but still, forewarned is forearmed.
Thanks for another great True Crime Thursday. Hope you have a wonderful day!
You’re so welcome, Dale. As Steve Weisman always says: “BS. Be skeptical.”
have a great day yourself, my friend.
Oy. It’s hard to keep up with all the ways scammers cheat honest people. Although in the case of the piano, it’s hard to believe a music student would take a piano without having seen and played it.
I’m trying to come up with an apt punishment for the piano scammer. Maybe a year in a prison cell where music of a four-year-old practicing Chopsticks is piped in 24/7.
Interesting scam addendum: after I commented here, I checked my email, and I found an email just sent a few minutes ago, purportedly from Venmo about a charge (which is false) and includes a toll free number to call to cancel. I knew it was a scam, and I called the real Venmo customer service to report it. But even though it didn’t cost me any money, it cost me time.
So if they find the scammer who sent that, I recommend he/she be imprisoned in a cell with a loud, ticking clock that chimes every five minutes with a robot voice saying, “All our customer service representatives are serving other customers. Please stay on the line, and someone will be with you shortly.” 🙂
Kay, i always love the imaginative punishments you come up with! I nominate you to be a judge.
I just received a text from my “bank” about a questionable charge and a link to click. Same time, my husband received a similar text from a different “bank”, not one we’ve ever done business with. Straight to trash and block the senders.
Have a productive writing day, Your Honor.
This isn’t an affinity scam, but it’s one writers need to be aware of. A colleague who writes both novels and movie scripts (and she’s married to someone in the movie production business in LA) received an email from someone purporting to want to option her novel for a film. I don’t know all the details, but she actually allowed the guy to call her so she could have a little fun with him. It was clear he was playing on most writers’ deep seated desires to get their novels made into movies. She eventually shut him down by saying she’d refer his offer to her agent for further review. Like many writers I don’t know enough about the filmmaking business to know if offers are legit. But I do have a literary agent with an agency behind her who does. Plus my film rights contractually belong to my publisher. But the bottom line is never take for granted that an offer is legit–no matter how much you want it to be.
Kelly, thanks for bringing up that scam. As you say, the scammer exploits the writer’s hopes and dreams of seeing their story on the screen. The fraudster is counting on the writer’s emotions taking over. And for only $10K, they’ll prepare a script and package to present to Spielberg.
“…never take for granted that an offer is legit–no matter how much you want it to be.” Wise words! Thanks for stopping by, Kelly.
Good info, Debbie. I don’t have personal experience with this, but the phone scams in the area of healthcare have ramped up something fierce.
We visit my 91 year old father several times a week in his assisted living facility. During the hour or so we are there, he sometimes gets several phone calls. My husband answers the phone. He says “hello”. No one answers. He says it again. Finally a voice ( a bot, BTW) begins to speak, saying the call is to offer healthcare benefits/programs. If my husband doesn’t hang up, or if he says something that doesn’t include “no thank you”, he is transferred to an “agent”, who will try to get him to say “okay” or some such. Once you say “yes” to something, they’ve got you.
These scammers are preying on elderly, confused people, and I wish we could round ’em all up and make them live in a *facility*. And not a nice one.
It really torques me!
Rant over.
Have a great Thursday, all!
That’s sickening, Deb. Glad your dad has you looking out for him.
Rants against scammers are always welcome at TKZ!
Deb, if your dad has a cell phone, you can often have calls that are not in his contacts go straight to spam or trash. Unfortunately, I doubt it’s available for.a landline.
Yeah, it’s a landline. And I forgot to say that according to him, he gets upwards of 5 calls a day. 🙁
One good thing is that he can’t hear, so if the voice isn’t shouting at him, he just hangs up. 🙂
Mine thing to keep in mind… never say “Yes” to one of these scam calls, as the scammers have been known to record & clip your “yes” into the answer to the question about agreeing to terms, conditions, &/or payments…
When they say, “Is this _____?” I typically reply, “Speaking,”l and listen to ‘em fumble in recovery.
De
Debbie, thanks for doing these true crime reports and telling about the scams! A couple of weeks ago I received the email from a well-known producer who wanted to talk to me about making a movie from one of my books. It even named the book.
I was skeptical — why would such a famous producer be contacting me? I checked the internet for reports on it being a scam but it was too new to make the news. I forwarded the email to my agent and she was excited…I kept checking back on the web and finally came across a heartbreaking video made by an author who believed the email and was bitterly disappointed to finally learn it was a scam.
So…if you received an email from a famous producer, don’t get your hope us! And keep checking before responding to the email.
Pat, impersonation scams targeting writers are becoming very popular. The scammer poses as an agent, film producer, studio head, or other influential-sounding person. Sometimes they even use the actual actors’ and directors’ names and real production companies.
Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware does a great job of reporting such schemes. Her recent posts deal with specifically with impersonation scams: https://writerbeware.blog/
Glad your scam radar warned you!
Speaking of suitable punishments for scammers, I’m reminded of Jerry van Amerongen’s cartoon captioned: “Convict Hargis began to struggle when he saw his cell had been done up as an automotive waiting room.” The cell has a TV with a zigzag image, a standing ashtray, old chrome and vinyl chairs, a 1992 JC Whitney calendar, and 11 year old parts catalogs for reading material.
Hahaha, J. Yup, I been there.
Fun blog, Debbie, and useful. Florida is scam central. My husband got a phone call from his credit card company: Did he just buy a surfboard in San Diego? Don was working at his desk, in Fort Lauderdale.
Elaine, that must have been Don’s twin brother Cowabunga.
We’ve received similar phone calls in Montana from Discover about crooks in Florida trying to buy expensive sound systems and jewelry using a counterfeit card with our number. Fortunately Discover’s fraud dept was right on top of it and the cops caught the perps.
And remember, it if sounds too good–it’s probably a scam. Do NOT click on advertisements where the prices look too low on a well known site (cold creek was used in the one I saw) Always go the the company website. Cloned sites are easy to do, like the Norton scam. And remember, if the you get a call from SS–it’s a scam–they will send you a letter, not call you. And even then, be careful–check the postmark against the actual address.
I look at everything as a scam until proven otherwise.
Barbara, you’re wise to be suspicious. Cloned websites and fraud emails can look completely authentic with identical logos and design. I receive the Norton scam at least once a week. Also Geek Squad is another favorite for scammers.
Yes, Social Security imposters, phone calls from law enforcement about the warrant out for your arrest b/c you didn’t show up for jury duty, etc. They’re endless. And they must work b/c they continue to proliferate.
I always wonder what would happen if crooks use their smarts for good purposes. I’m not holding my breath!
Mary Ellen, in the immortal words of Maxwell Smart: “if he only used his powers for good and not evil.”
Not holding my breath either! Thanks for stopping by!